{"id":15816,"date":"2023-01-25T10:25:53","date_gmt":"2023-01-25T10:25:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/?post_type=article&p=15816"},"modified":"2025-12-15T05:11:21","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T05:11:21","slug":"what-defines-a-good-practice-facility","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/what-defines-a-good-practice-facility\/","title":{"rendered":"What Defines a Good Practice Facility?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
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\n 25 Jan 2023 <\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>Articles<\/a>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t

What Defines a Good Practice Facility?<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n \n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Category<\/div>\n Leadership & Culture<\/a> <\/div>\n
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We explore six themes through the eyes of the Toronto Blue Jays and Boston Celtics, who moved recently, and Paris St-Germain and the San Antonio Spurs, who will both move in the near future.<\/p>\n \n \n \n

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By John Portch<\/h6>\n
What are the fundamentals of a good practice facility? For the Toronto Blue Jays, who opened their Player Development Complex in Dunedin, Florida, in 2021, those fundamentals were summed up in an acronym that pulls together their values: CLEAR. It stands for collaboration, learning, empowerment, achieve and respect.<\/h6>\n

Each was explained by Angus Mugford, who served as the Jays\u2019 Vice President of high Performance at the time. \u201cWe want to have a highly collaborative environment where different departments and people are close to each other,\u201d he told the Leaders Performance Institute in 2019. \u201cThe open spaces are more attractive for people who want to come together. It\u2019s the same thing with the high performance offices and space. It\u2019s together and unified and it\u2019s also physically and metaphorically in the centre, so that the ease of communication and collaboration is right there, but it\u2019s also a space for players and coaches and other staff can be together easily.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Learning.\u2019 You don\u2019t have to be in a specific room to learn but we want to create some specific environments where learning is enhanced. One of the critiques other teams were telling us about were in auditoriums, how easy it was for guys on the back row to close their eyes and switch off like a movie theatre, so we\u2019ve leaned towards more a business school lecture theatre, which is less about lecturing and more about having a pulpit in the middle and more of an inclusive, collaborative environment between whoever is leading the discussion and everybody who is in that audience.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe E is \u2018empowerment\u2019 and that goes for staff and players. That people can take the initiative, that we want players to be at the centre of that ultimately. So creating spaces where people have the autonomy and ability to create discussions; open meeting rooms. When we toured Google, that was a really good takeaway, they have this idea of \u2018collision spaces\u2019; so creating spaces where people can organically meet.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen the A is for \u2018achieve\u2019. Not just winning but really just more about a process of excellence and really trying to be consistent and thoughtful about the details. I think with the details that we\u2019re trying to get into with the design and setting up, we also realised that in this process of moving in we\u2019re going to screw some things up. Or people are going to have even more ideas that we can think about until they\u2019re actually in the space so I think that whole process of moving in, taking feedback, and saying what people need and want to make that space even more functional is going to be a priority once we do actually move into the space too.<\/p>\n

\u201cFinally, \u2018respect\u2019 is the R. Not just for each other and the team but our environment and our physical space is an element that can be a thread throughout our team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here, we explore six more themes that define a good training environment.<\/p>\n

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  1. Flow and efficiency<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Efficiency is essential and that comes from frictionless circulation of athletes and staff. \u201cYou have everything on one level when it comes to training, preparation and recovery,\u201d said Martin Buchheit of Paris St-Germain\u2019s Ooredoo Training Center in 2019. Buchheit served as PSG\u2019s Head of Performance between 2014 and 2020. He now serves as a high performance consultant with LOSC Lille in France\u2019s Ligue 1. \u201cEverything is central and everything is connected. From the locker room you enter straight into the mobility, stretching and warmup area, which is chronological as well. You get ready, you get changed, then you go for functional work. Afterwards, their recovery, the stretching and mobility area is connected to the locker room, the hydrotherapy area is connected to the locker room; it makes it very efficient to get those recovery routines straight after training.<\/p>\n

    Flow is also crucial to an aligned, interdisciplinary approach. \u201cOne of the things I\u2019ve found historically is that people gravitate towards their own space,\u201d said Mugford, who now serves as the Senior Vice President of Player Development & Performance at the New Jersey Devils. \u201cThe strength coaches may want to sit together and the trainers may want to sit together. People gravitate towards their own discipline and what we really want to make a commitment to doing is sharing that space so that we\u2019re really maximising the collaboration. We\u2019ve already made that shift over the past few years, but something as basic as that is really fundamental when we have affiliate staff and groups sitting together so that natural exchange happens as we\u2019d like it to.\u201d<\/p>\n

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    1. Touchpoints for collaboration and creativity<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      The Jays\u2019 upgrade made Mugford the ideal man to talk with Phil Cullen, the Senior Director of Basketball Operations & Organizational Development at the San Antonio Spurs, ahead of the team\u2019s move to its $510m Human Performance Campus at The Rock at La Cantera, Texas. Cullen told an audience at the 2019 Leaders Sport Performance Summit in London that the facility will boast human-centred design characteristics that promote collaboration and creativity. \u201cA lot of times it\u2019s focused on the coaching element, which is extremely important, and player amenities, but how do you facilitate those casual collisions?\u201d said Cullen. \u201cThe people that would be in your facility the most and have the most touchpoints are probably not who you think they are. For us, it was our equipment guy. Very often you\u2019ll go back and the players are hanging out with the equipment guy. Why? Because they can just hang out. It\u2019ll be the athletic trainer, it\u2019ll be the guy who\u2019s taping his ankles and helping the guy rehab.\u201d This has been uppermost in the Spurs\u2019 thinking, who have even installed TVs close to the ceiling of their current facility to help take players eyes away from their phones.<\/p>\n

      Cullen added: \u201cHow can we make sure we have the best possible experience so that we\u2019re actually giving them opportunities in their career development; giving them all the resources they want to advance? So that when we go into the marketplace to recruit these guys to have elite talent in our building, we\u2019re not only attracting elite basketball players and elite coaches, but also the staff around them. That\u2019s where collaboration is key. For us, the human-centred design piece is really trying to break down those interactions and it starts when the players pull up into the facility; what\u2019s that experience when they enter in, get out, walk into the parking lot? Who are they walking past when they go to the locker room?\u201d<\/p>\n

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      1. Create a pleasant work environment<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        Beyond upgraded modalities, modern practice facilities need to be appealing destinations and Art Horne, the Director of Organizational Growth & Team Development at the Boston Celtics, speaks with a sense of awe about the 40-foot glass windows that overlook the city of Boston at the Auerbach Center, which opened in 2018. \u201cNatural light is a huge plus in Boston when it\u2019s cold and dark,\u201d he told the Leaders Performance Institute the following year. \u201cIt\u2019s an inviting place,\u201d added Jay Wessland, the Celtics\u2019 Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, who sat next to Horne. \u201cAll that natural light and the city skyline; we needed a place that people are encouraged to go and work out in; that they didn\u2019t think it was a chore.\u201d Such considerations were uppermost in the minds of PSG, who plan to move into their Paris Saint-Germain Training Center later this year. The complex is to include the Club House, which the club\u2019s official website says is: \u201cEntirely glassed at ground-floor level to provide views out into the surrounding landscape and create an illusion of levitation. Inside, a shape entitled \u2018The Blue Flight\u2019 rises skywards, symbolising the ultimate goal of all of the Club\u2019s athletes.\u201d<\/p>\n

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        1. If you\u2019re building a new facility, be sure your architect listens<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

          Cullen explained that San Antonio had an issue with the sports-focused architects whom they consulted. \u201cThey try to give you the best rendition of what they\u2019ve just completed,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019ll kind of tell you what you want rather than really listening to what you need.\u201d The solution was to partner with an architect that had experience of other sectors. \u201cAll of us now are becoming small tech companies; the technology\u2019s integrated in everything we do. Why aren\u2019t we looking at technology companies and how they work to see how it can impact how we\u2019ll work in the future?\u201d The Spurs were left pondering aspects and thinking points they may not have otherwise considered.<\/p>\n

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          1. Does your building have agility?<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

            Training facilities need to allow for the preferences of head coaches and PSG\u2019s Ooredoo Training Centre, even as it comes to the end of its life cycle, has that covered \u2013 quite literally. In line with numerous clubs in European football, PSG have a 45x14m tent, which covers a pitch of synthetic turf right next to one of their main training pitches. It is a useful tool for group work. \u201cA lot of work can be done outside,\u201d Buchheit explained. \u201cA portion of the group can be training outside on the pitch and the other half can be doing some strength work or some other exercises in this area \u2013 they don\u2019t need to go back inside to take their boots off and a coach can do rotations. It offers efficiency and it also offers flexibility; depending on the coach, we\u2019ll be using the tent a lot or not. It\u2019s about being able to allow all staff and coaches to run their programmes as they wish. The agility of the building today is a legacy of the different coaches who worked with us in the past and so these adaptations are the fruit of a collective process involving the current and past backroom staff.\u201d<\/p>\n

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            1. Future-proof your facility \u2013 leave some space free<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

              It can be tempting to throw the kitchen sink at a new facility but the Spurs and Cullen are wary of doing so or being locked into one type of technology. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to be intentional about not designing a space for one specific use because it can very quickly become a closet if it can\u2019t be used for more than one thing,\u201d he said. \u201cBy far the No 1 thing people tell us is make sure you have enough space. You may not have all the nice designs and be able to finish it all out, be able to brand it, be able to story-tell the way you want, but make sure you get the space because you want to future-proof and you can\u2019t move around in it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/div>\n \n \n \n <\/div>\n

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